Well, I won’t link to them, and I don’t know why I should be surprised, but I’m surprised.

I woke up this morning to find the details of a private meeting on an industry website. I seem to recall a couple of fans in the area who clearly could not wait to send out carrier pigeons, a flair, and a satellite transmission to relate the details of this private meeting in a public forum.

We’ve seen the item in question and it’s pretty clear that the “reporter” overheard a private conversation and wrote up the meager news within as a “news item.” Note to all wanna-be journos out there: eavesdropping doesn’t count unless your name is Mata Hari and it’s this kind of ridiculous behavior that gives serious journalists such a bad rap.

DeFalco said there are several reasons why his relationship with Marvel may be ending, chief among them being the simple fact that he’s getting little to no other work from the company. “The bad news about working on the same thing for that many years is that editors start to believe that it is the only thing you can do,” DeFalco told CBR. “So the only way I can get non-Spider-related work is to work for other companies.”

DeFalco continued, “The truth is that editors are a cowardly and superstitious lot. They are constantly looking for the ‘next big thing’ that will magically jump the sales of every comic book. The sad truth is that, with the market we have today, there is no magical ‘next big thing.’

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Why is it that the older you get, the less people think you might be capable of writing a good story. isnt the experience thing important as well? Some of the best authors out there are doing their best work later in life…lol…and tom isnt that old!

so dumb…and tom knows his stuff. really. good guy, good solid writer with more chops than most of the new talent out there. someone smart will find tom and hire him in no time. Just watch!!

as far as the person reporting on colleens conversation, they should print this persons name so we know who to avoid at all costs. really low.

I think it is a shame. I like Tom’s stuff myself but more importantly, Spider-Girl is the book that hooked my daughter on comics and made her stop believing that only boys could be the hero. Meeting him at NY Comic Con last year was the hit of the show for her. From what I can see, he can still bring in the kids.

Overheard conversations and gossip are reported in the media, but they’re reported in gossip columns, not as news articles. Gossip columns can be newsy; see, for example, the “Washington Whispers” section in U.S. News & World Report magazine.

The first item has no context whatsoever and that renders it completely meaningless. There isn’t even a vague suggestion as to what this “Private meeting” was: Doran’s next project? Her Social Insurance Number? What’s for lunch next week? It’s hard to share in the outrage when there is no indication how serious the transgression was.

How can a meeting be considered private when it’s done in public and within earshot of other people? Not being able to read the actual offending news story, it’s hard to understand exactly what this unnamed person/journalist did that was so wrong or unethical.

I read Coleen’s blog and from what I read in the comment section, it seemed as though she was having her agent deal with what she referred to as an “unauthorized story”. Since when does something have to be authorized before reporting it as news?

There is a huge difference between “Authorized” and eavesdropping. For instance, someone reported that Carla Speed McNeil was seen at the Vertigo booth — could something be up? Well maybe. Who knows. People are seen dining together all the time. It’s public, and when you’re a public figure, it, sadly, comes with the territory.

Had someone said “Colleen and soanso” were seen in talks…I do consider that legit “reporting.” But listening in on a private (even if publicly conducted) conversation and then WRITING ABOUT IT without asking is, frankly, reprehensible.

No, I don’t consider snooping in on people’s private conversations to be reporting. You’ve read the the piece. I have not. Was the unnamed person truly snooping or could they not help but hear the conversation?

She doesn’t even know that the story came from any of the fans she recalls being within earshot of the conversation. She is only assuming that it came from them, right? In fact, she even jokes that perhaps her laptop was bugged. For all we know, it might have been leaked from the other person she was having the secret private discussion with.

The worst thing about the eavesdropping asshole is that what he reported wasn’t even NEWS. It’s one thing if you overhear Colleen Doran talking about her unannounced Vertigo graphic novel, it’s another to overhear her talking about MAYBE hooking up her IP with some producer, a conversation virtually every established creator has all the time. This was just creepy.